Fetch Quest Chapter 80: Limit (Patreon)

Evolution conditions met: Mana toxicity tolerance ranks up to mana toxicity resistance
Most living creatures require water to live, but that doesn't mean they can't drown. The same applies to mana, and even the most powerful arch-mage will still burn if trapped in a dense ocean of magic. What sort of twisted location you managed to find that possessed a mana density sufficient to break down your body by its mere presence is a secret known only to you, but it was enough to earn this upgrade from tolerance to resistance. This skill will reduce the damage of a mana overload.

Suffocation tolerance advanced to level 9

I wasn't really in a fit state to pay attention to the notification as I lay shaking on the floor, gasping for breath, trying desperately to get enough oxygen into my bloodstream when my lungs were half filled with my own blood.

I'd taken two healing potions, back before things had got so bad, and while they refilled my health bar and magically restored my skin to something that looked less like I'd been attacking it with a cheese grater, they did nothing to empty my lungs of fluid, and they didn't replenish lost water or calories. For the first time since I'd arrived in this world, I was utterly famished, and hadn't been in any fit state to eat.

With the skill evolution, I got some semblance of control back over my poor, abused body, and immediately started coughing up everything I could. By the time I stopped, my nightie was bloodstained both inside and out, and I'd made a mess of quite a wide circle around where I'd first sat down. I was down to a quarter of my health bar and it was still dropping, my body still covered with horrific burns.

With how hungry I already was, I doubted my body had the resources to make use of the third potion, but it wasn't as if I had time to eat something and wait for it to be digested. I summoned the last potion from my item box and, with a shaking hand, managed to pour it down my throat.

New skill gained: Starvation tolerance
Food can often be hard to find in the wilderness. Perhaps you're in a desert, or a frozen tundra, or trapped in a labyrinth surrounded by monsters with inconveniently poisonous flesh. The job of adventurer is one that demands a steady supply of fuel, and when supplies run out, life can become very hard indeed. This skill will help you last longer with whatever meagre resources you're able to scrounge.

My burns started to heal, but my new skin thinned and stretched, looking more like it belonged on a ninety-year-old than a university student. My limbs thinned. The feelings of hunger became unbearable, and my torso collapsed, revealing every one of my ribs in horrifying detail, my stomach shrunken beneath them. Then my skin tore, blood oozing from the new wounds, far more viscous than it had any right to be if I expected it to flow through my veins.

Unsurprisingly, my health bar, after a brief blip upwards, was now heading rapidly towards empty.

"Starving to death is horrible," I commented, when I respawned back in the abyss, before laughing at the thought of a future skill evolution informing me I'd earned an achievement for surviving starving to death. Was that more or less impressive than surviving decapitation?

Actually, that new skill had talked about adventurers again. That had been happening less often recently.

The demons, still busy on their never ending walks from point A to point B, looked at me weirdly, then hurried on, once again not wanted to associate themselves with the weird girl talking and laughing to herself.

So, healing potions were at least slightly realistic. They didn't seem to provide magical healing at zero cost, but rather massively accelerated my own natural healing. And if my body didn't have the resources available to provide that healing... Unpleasantness happened. At least, unless I grind that starvation resistance skill high enough, in which case maybe that problem would go away.

Despite the mild veneer of realism, it would still be worth carrying a few around with me, so I bought a few more before heading back to the staircase.

"Guess we won't be seeing you again then," said the guard as I walked past, but hearing the same line for the fourth time was enough for me to not bother responding.

"Rude, that one," complained the other guard, causing me to giggle.

The expanse of the sixth floor was still harsh, but now it felt more like sitting in a sauna than being burnt alive. My wings flapped without me gaining any real height, but neither was I tumbling uncontrollably. My breathing was laboured and my heart was hammering in my chest, but I wasn't suffocating. I wouldn't be able to live here, but I felt confident I could reach the interesting spot I'd noticed.

Mana toxicity resistance advanced to level 11

Or, if the skill kept growing at the rate it was, I might even be able to explore the full floor.

As I glided closer, the grey patch began to resolve itself, and to my surprise, I discovered it was a town. From the air, I could see hundreds of structures, but I couldn't make out any residents. That didn't change as I got closer, or even when I landed in its centre.

Not a town then; ruins. But very unruined ruins. The structures showed some cracks, and I spotted one or two collapsed roofs, but for the most part, they were intact. There was no encroachment of wildlife, presumably because there was no wildlife around to encroach. I could imagine that a normal abandoned town would be torn apart by plant roots and weathering, but in this cavern, there were neither. It could have stood like this for centuries.

None of my esoteric senses picked up anything. No presences or mana signatures. Not that I was confident about picking up mana signatures through the background noise. The town was well away from any of the rifts, but for some reason the ambient mana was even higher than my first landing spot, and was more than intense enough to burn.

The architecture was familiar. Walls were made of brick, and roofs were tiled. Windows were glass, and where one roof had collapsed, I saw wooden trusses beneath. Things were generally box-shaped, with low-key decorations. The street was wide, a central road lined with pavements, and houses had little fenced off patches that I could believe were gardens. Everything was scaled to my size.

The town looked... human.

The feeling of familiarity grew when I let myself into one of the houses. The door was locked, but I could climb in through a broken window, the possibility of cutting myself on the shards of glass not even a consideration with my toughened skin and maxed out cutting damage nullification. I found myself in a living room, with a sofa placed in front of a TV. A computer sat at a desk in one corner. No, not a computer; just a large monitor. On closer inspection, it had nothing plugged into it. Against a back wall was a large cage. It was empty, but I couldn't think of anything it could be but the home of a pet.

Walking through a door led me to a kitchen, and I stared at the oven and microwave. There was a fridge! And a freezer! Opening them up revealed a completely empty interior, so no food for me. It would have spoilt anyway; they were room temperature, and flicking the light switch confirmed the lack of power.

I worked my way through the cupboards, finding everything completely empty. The rest of the house was the same; furnished, but otherwise bare. There was no power, nor did water flow from the taps. There was a phone, but no phone line. A car was parked in a garage, but I could find no keys, and it wasn't as if I had anywhere to drive it. Why was there a human town here? And where had its occupants gone?

Exploring other houses revealed them to be in the same state. There were some structures that looked to be shops, but again, they were empty of all but large furnishings. A convenience store was filled with barren shelves, advertising the price of non-existent loaves of bread. A pharmacy was devoid of all medicine. A petrol station stood dry and desolate.

There was no sign of infrastructure anywhere, and when I examined a house to find what its water or electric was hooked up to, there was nothing. It wasn't that it was disconnected, but that I couldn't find any pipes that pointed outside. This didn't seem to be a town teleported in from Earth, but a poor recreation that didn't quite seem to understand what was required beyond the individual houses.

There was a church.

I stepped inside, wondering what religion I would find. It looked Christian from the outside, hence my first thought jumping to 'church'. The inside, however, did not match my expectations.

Void nullification advanced to level 27
Mana toxicity resistance advanced to level 12

For a start, there was a miniature rift running up the central aisle. Mana was pouring from it, the sheer density of it taking my breath away. Literally. This must be why the background in the town was so high.

The rest of the interior was warped. Rows of pews pointed towards the front, but they were uneven and bent, each one a different size. Darkness pooled beneath them, the shadows darker than they had any right to be, and in some cases being cast without any apparent light source. The same shadows ran up the walls, and stained glass windows that depicted bright and cheery scenes when viewed from the outside, depicted red scenes of bloody horror viewed from within.

An altar stood on a raised platform at the front of the hall, draped in a black cloth with a golden pattern embroidered around the edges that I couldn't clearly make out from the distance, but that looked suspiciously like eyes. There was nothing on the altar, but behind it...

New side quest: Make an offering to the [untranslatable] shrine
[untranslatable]
Clear conditions: Sacrifice mana crystals worth a minimum of 10000 mana to the distorted shrine.
Reward: Gain one class level.

Previous statues had been crumbling or decayed, and had required a hundred mana to repair. On occasions where the statue had been completely destroyed, it had taken two hundred. This wanted ten thousand. Fifty times more than a statue that had seen the entire floor erased. I had enough mana crystals for it, thanks to everything that I'd looted from floor four, but if there were extra rewards, they would be far out of reach.

This statue looked like the carver had partaken of the first floor's magic mushrooms, and then the finished product had suffered from cancer. There were hints of the angelic face in there, but it was mostly covered by growths of stone. Extra arms jutted out at strange angles, as if another creature had been superimposed on top of the usual design. One wing was missing entirely, and the other was bone instead of feathered, spikes sticking out of the top. The mouth was warped into a rictus of pain, and the one visible eye had a red streak below it, as if it were weeping blood. Or perhaps it was weeping blood; as I drew closer, I could see a red pool at the statue's base.

Parts of the growths were patterned with scale-like decorations. A long tail sprouted from the base, gradually widening to fist-width near the end, before narrowing back to a point at the tip. Some features were cloaked in shadow, despite a lack of overhangs to cast them.

Whatever freaky eldritch crap was going on with the statue, a class level was a class level, so I approached it and prepared to offer up my crystals.

One of the stone growths shifted, five different slits opening wide, revealing eyes of black flame beneath. A wider slit opened, a maw of sharpened teeth, and behind them nothing, just the eye-sucking darkness of the Void.

"THE SUCCESSOR..." it started, before I slammed every mana crystal I had at the thing.

Void nullification advanced to level 28
Void nullification advanced to level 29

I stumbled backward and fell to my hands and knees, doing my best to keep my stomach contents on the inside, the two words having been enough to shake my consciousness. How many times I had I lost whatever it was that had been in my stomach when I first arrived here? I could barely even remember what it was. Hadn't I had pizza before going to bed?

Side quest complete: Make an offering to the [untranslatable] shrine
Level cap reached

Before I had a chance to think about the level cap, a piercing screech emanated from the statue, the entire structure shaking. I heard the sounds of the windows shattering, and loud cracking that suggested the structure was about to collapse. Unwilling to lose consciousness in the middle of whatever the heck was going on here, I pulled out a dagger and made an attempt at slitting my throat. Unfortunately, my increased resistances were high enough that my spider claw, wielded by my unsteady hand, glanced off, and I collapsed before having the chance to make another attempt, only being able to activate trigger respawn instead.